Why Everyone Suddenly Forgot Jason Segel

I love you very much

Are you breaking up with me? When Forgetting Sarah Marshall came out in 2008

it set its writer-slash-star on a clear path through the Hollywood machine

This man got to live out his dreams, revive a dead franchise, cross genre boundaries

and achieve success most actors could only dream of. And then, he totally disappeared

Not just from the scene, but from our memories. So how did we go from forgetting Sarah Marshall to forgetting Jason Segel

And how did he manage to come back without missing a beat? See a psychiatrist. I hate the psychiatrist

Well, go see one anyway. I don't like the psychiatrist. Jason Segel first showed up on our screens way back in 1998

That year, he played bit parts in two teen movies, Can't Hardly Wait and Dead Man on Campus

Of course, nobody would really learn his name until the following year when he appeared first as a minor character in the cult classic movie SLC Punk

and later as Nick Andopolis on the beloved sitcom Freaks and Geeks. I believe in God, man

I've seen him. I felt his power. He plays drums for Led Zeppelin, and his name is John Bonham, baby

Though Freaks and Geeks only ran for 18 episodes, it became a cultural touchstone for teens of the early 2000s

It also launched the careers of several of its young actors, thanks in large part to the series producer Judd Apatow

While Apatow became a sort of mentor to many of these budding child stars

Segal seemed to foster an especially close-working relationship with him. Awkward, gangly, yet undeniably funny and driven

Apatow clearly saw potential in Segal, and the two joined together again in 2001

for Apatow's single-season sitcom Undeclared before Segal landed himself a gig of a lifetime

as Marshall Erickson on How I Met Your Mother. Segal's charismatic, passionate, and at times dorky portrayal

had viewers magnetized to their screens. A TV show Segal was starring in became more than just a cult hit

this was real success and real recognition. Any working actor would be happy to live out their days

with a steady paycheck for nine seasons on one of the biggest sitcoms to ever hit our television sets And if Siegel were any working actor he might have just done that but he had other ambitions In fact How I Met Your Mother was actually holding him back

Hey, look, Mommy's back from the bar. Now I can finally take a shower

In 2007, Siegel linked back up with Judd Apatow to play a memorably hilarious supporting role

in Seth Rogen's vehicle Knocked Up, which Apatow had written, directed, and produced

And according to Siegel, once they wrapped on Knocked Up, Apatow took him to a Lakers game and told him

it was his turn at bat. Luckily for Siegel, he was prepared to shoot his shot, and he had an easy

layup. Earlier that year, while filming Knocked Up, Siegel had gone through a breakup, and as the

story goes, his then-girlfriend ended things while he was naked, and instead of being upset in the

moment, true to his word, Siegel had already started to play around with turning his real-life

misadventure into a fictional romantic comedy by the time Apatow came to him asking for ideas

And within weeks, Forgetting Sarah Marshall was officially in pre-production. It took Siegel

two months to write the script, necessitating a leave of absence from How I Met Your Mother

in the meantime. For his part, Apatow provided moral support and financial backing, opting to

produce the project and allow another of his young apprentices, Nicholas Stoller, to direct

The resulting film was an instant hit. Forgetting Sarah Marshall might not have been the most

commercially successful Apatow project, but it achieved something far more important. It proved that Jason Segel was meant to be a star. Not only did he put up a killer performance

but the script was pitch perfect. The characters felt believable while still being hilariously

heightened. Yeah, that wasn't quite it, but we're going to figure it out out there. Let's go surfing

Come on. Everybody's learning how. Come on. The weather outside is weather. And the premise was a

bizarre twist on an otherwise dry and overplayed formula. These were real people with real flaws

who really hurt each other. They just did it in a way we could find humor in

like Siegel did when he got broken up with while sitting naked on his couch. Plus, we got puppets

It was obvious that Siegel had serious talent, but he didn't take himself too seriously

Over the years while still playing Marshall on How I Met Your Mother he landed more roles in comedy films he didn have a hand in writing and Sarah Marshall got its own spinoff But Siegel always had an eye on his next big project That project would end up being more puppets The iconic Dracula puppet musical from

Forgetting Sarah Marshall was made possible by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company

and Siegel's experience with them gave him his most outlandish idea yet. During a meeting with

Disney exec Kristen Burr, Siegel pitched a revival of the Long Dead Muppets franchise

And that pitch must have been convincing because he got the deal before he left Burr's office

He immediately enlisted Nicholas Stoller to help him co-write the movie, which Siegel would also star in

And in 2011, The Muppets was released to universal and uproarious applause

Losing the raunch and amping up the surrealism, The Muppets was a family-friendly affair with the same sharp wit as Siegel's last film

Your fans! They love you guys! Intentionally writing the puppet characters as more realistic than the human actors

The Muppets ended up being a laugh-laden story that dealt with heavy themes of duty

legacy, and growing up. Critics adored it, audiences couldn't get enough of it

and it's still the highest-grossing puppet movie of all time. Even after more than a decade, it rejuvenated The Muppets brand

and it brought those lovable characters from a previous generation into the modern era

and they're still riding that wave of popularity today. If Siegel hadn't already proven himself a comedy mainstay with Forgetting Sarah Marshall

he would have done so with The Muppets. Even then, he wasn't satisfied. It was during these years that Siegel found his work on How I Met Your Mother taxing

He was tired and was starting to not enjoy himself or his work. That waning of enthusiasm might be why his next joint adventure with Stoller

The Five-Year Engagement, was neither a critical or commercial success. But he wouldn't have to worry for long

How I Met Your Mother ended in 2014, and by the following year

Siegel was exploring new avenues. From a biopic about acclaimed writer David Foster Wallace

to a serious sci-fi film, to a coming-of-age romance, Siegel did a run of dramatic roles that frankly, no one saw

And if they did, they probably weren't impressed. While some of these movies fared better than others

none were the cultural juggernauts of Siegel past He even had a story buy and producer credit on 2022 Windfall And that movie was maybe the worst thing a Jason Siegel movie can be Boring To be fair to Siegel

here, he wasn't heading any of these projects, and the one dramatic series he created was

at the very least, not a critical flop. The sci-fi anthology series Dispatches from Elsewhere

aired for one season on AMC in 2020. During that time, Siegel was a writer, director, and star

But be honest, did you even know this show existed? It seemed as though Siegel had well and truly worn out his time in the spotlight

My reign is done. It's time to die. With no more comedic antics to be found, we as a viewing audience had moved on

But if we've learned anything from his career, it's that Siegel is willing to put in the work and get what he wants

If he wasn't joking about his foray into drama, then he'd need a little help. So that's what he went looking for, and he found it in the form of TV icon Bill Lawrence and comedian Brett Goldstein

Together, the trio would create Shrinking, a comedy drama starring Siegel and Harrison Ford, which debuted in 2023

Following a therapist who makes questionable ethical decisions after the death of his wife

Shrinking strikes a balance between its somber subject and lighthearted hilarity. Siegel and his co-creators wrote the pilot episode together to set the tone

And like those better Segal projects of old, Shrinking shows us a heightened version of humanity to tell human stories

It makes us laugh and pauses to let us consider our own frailty

It's the best of both worlds Segal so clearly wants to inhabit. It takes lessons from his early comedic successes and his more recent dramatic failures

And because of that, it's also one of the greatest things he's ever created. At time of recording, Shrinking's third season is set to release in 2026

and while it probably won't be setting the world ablaze the way forgetting Sarah Marshall and the Muppets did

Shrinking has and will continue to prove that Jason Segel is here to stay

and he actually has Judd Apatow to thank for it in more ways than you might think

Going all the way back to the beginning of this video and the beginning of Segel's career with Freaks and Geeks

Apatow apparently took Segel aside and had this to say. Jase, you're a weird dude

The only way you're gonna make it is if you write your own material